In Three Years, State Troopers Make 268 Naloxone Saves

A Philadelphia Police officer shows a package of the overdose reversal agent Naloxone Hydrochloride, or Narcan, while on patrol near a heroin encampment in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on April 14, 2017. (DOMINICK REUTER / AFP/Getty Images)

Three years since state troopers began carrying the life-saving drug naloxone, officials said they have reversed nearly 300 opioid overdoses.

The state troopers, Connecticut’s largest law enforcement organization, began carrying the drug, used to reverse overdoses, in October 2014 amid a years-long opioid crisis that has killed hundreds of people.

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“Connecticut’s state troopers are among the best in the nation, and their quick, responsive actions are saving lives,” Governor Dannel P. Malloy said in a statement. “Misuse of prescription drugs and other narcotics is an epidemic across our nation – it’s a disease and we must work together to prevent it. Our work on this front is not finished until our communities and our families are no longer struggling with the grave costs of this illness. On behalf of our state’s residents, I thank the members of law enforcement who all too often encounter this problem face-to-face. Not only are these frontline men and women saving lives, but their actions are helping people begin the necessary path toward treatment and recovery.”

Legislators and Malloy changed the law in 2014 removing the liability from those who administered naloxone in good faith, officials said. With that change in law, officials with the Department of Emergency Services and Public Protection equipped the more than 1,000 state troopers with naloxone.

“I am so proud of our state troopers,” DESPP Commissioner Dora Schriro said in a statement. “Their commitment to the public’s safety and well being is unwavering. But for their intervention, 268 Connecticut residents grappling with opioid addiction would have died. Because of the actions of Connecticut state troopers, our neighbors have a second chance to live, and another opportunity to strive towards sobriety.”

Naloxone has been administered to people 14 to 83 years old, state police reported.

Through years of battling the opioid crisis, Malloy and state legislators have further increased the access to naloxone, making it readily available to people on all ends of the epidemic.

Despite increases in the availability of the drug, the number of overdose deaths has reached over 1,000 — many of which involving opioids.